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I'm told that the Walt Disney Co is currently attempting to trademark the character name "Princess Aurora" for all media: stage, sound, film, TV, video, Internet, photographs, news. In short, everything except literature. The name comes from the 1697 Charles Perrault fairy tale and Aurora is the Princess's daughter (and thus a princess herself). 
The first use of "Princess Aurora" was in the 1890 Tchaikovsky ballet "The Sleeping Beauty," which Disney turned into the 1959 animated film. It has been used continuously since then in the ballet as the title character's name. The problem is that, if the Disney Company is successful, it will effectively control the legal right to all future performances of the ballet. The move also could sink any movie about the ballet or that uses a scene of the ballet in another movie. "This would be like a film studio trademarking the character name "Ebenezer Scrooge" for all media (no one has) and then no one could perform "A Christmas Carol" on a stage, TV, in a film, radio, etc without first securing the right to use the name from the trademark owner," a critic emails me. Not surprisingly, Disney is also seeking to trademark "Princess Aurora" for products. Therefore, a campaign has emerged to complain to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office if people feel this trademarking of a pre-existing character name should not be allowed.
An Attempt To Stop The Disney Machine
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I can tell you from first-hand experience that Disney legal is out of control. For the smallest project, you have no less that a 10 page non-disclosure contract to sign but also another 20 page regular contract. They are ruthless. They pay little. They are very powerful … and they act all powerful. Don’t be fooled by Mickey Mouse. This is an example of Mickey believing in and enforcing that power. A prime monopoly-behavior example.
what bullshit… I hope Disney fails in trying to trademark a public domain character!
It’s kind of like Dreamworks trying to trademark “Puss In Boots”: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:5r5emo.2.2
or Disney trademarking “Pinocchio”:
http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4005:5r5emo.4.7
and on and on…it’s silly. Disney can trademark the name for specific product categories but will not prevail in filing the name in all categories in particular those that might prevent others from performing a public domain work. If the ballet is not PD then it is incumbent upon the estate or controllers of Tchaikovsky’s intellectual property rights to make the claim themselves and perhaps sue to prevent Disney from being granted the TM.
More likely than not, the trademark will be amended to “Disney’s Princess Aurora” a mark distinguished by the name Disney to which the company has exclusive and far reaching protections.
While I can understand Disney’s desire to protect what it considers its intellectual property, trying to copyright a public domain fairy tale character is just another chapter in the story of the big dumb bullying Disney corporation lashing out when it doesn’t have to.
They probably already have a trademark on the character’s appearance as designed by Disney, and I can understand that because they created that look and don’t want it on bootleg merchandise, but any claim on a public domain name is simply being greedy.
I don’t know much about copyright law, but a very fundamental level, my problem with this is that Disney didn’t CREATE the character or name “Princess Aurora.” While they have every right to Simba the Lion (well, even that’s arguable), Princess Aurora sounds like she should remain firmly in the public domain.
Yes, b/c ripping off Fairy Tales and calling them your own is exactly how trademarking should work. (ha)
Do they even have a legal department at Disney? This isn’t going to make it through trademark and a simple name change is all that it would take.
Who would even come up with this? It’s seems kind of antagonistic to everything Disney was built on?
Before any of you “legal experts” try to speak without knowing a thing, it’s fully within Disney’s rights to say PRINCESS AURORA, as represented in the Disney film, is entirely their domain. Her costumes, personality, likeness, etc. This means that anyone is free to use Princess Aurora as a character name, even in the context of the original public domain fairy tale — just be prepared to fight a legal battle if it resembles anything near what was popularized by the Disney film.
Companies do this all the time. They stake out claim so that people decide it’s not worth the effort to fight a case that they very well may win. It’s not even below the belt.
Get over it.
Mike T is right. What’s more is that the Tea Rose Rectanus doctrine will protect any uses of the mark established prior to Disney’s filing, presuming it gets registered.
I might be missing something, but I don’t see how trademarking a character NAME would yield all the mentioned results. Disney isn’t trying to claim ownership over the story, just the name (although I don’t agree with that either).
The way I see it, the ballets and movies, etc., can go on, just change the name of the character. No?
Booooo! They don’t own my favorite Disney princess’ name!
I will soon be trademarking the characters: “Angry Consumer Dave” and “Unhinged Vigilante Rufus”
Because they think they are the center of the universe and everything is as a matter of right their due (like all studios), Disney may attempt to trademark after this attempt the name and likeness of another pre-existing character named “God”.
Resp to Comment by Anonymous — May 1, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Dear ‘Anonymous,’
Get your head on straight. The way you think is outrageous.
You don’t need to be a ‘legal expert’ (not sure why specifically this was in quotationss) to realize that what Disney is trying to do is sick. Their legal argument has legs, you’re right about that, but conversations on this sort of topic should focus on ‘is this right?,’ not ‘do they have the right?’
‘Companies do this all the time. They stake out claim so that people decide it’s not worth the effort to fight a case that they very well may win. It’s not even below the belt. Get over it.’
You’re right, some corporations [read: enormous multinational conglomerates with endlessly deep pockets] do do this all the time, and it’s destorying and retarding cultural production in this country and, increasingly, in the rest of the world, too. Advertising, merchandising, and cultural products (of just the worst imaginable quality) are pushed in our faces everyday and we have no legal right to reappropriate them because of ironfisted copyright/IP laws that were put on the books in the 1980s. It’s wrong and it’s bad for everyone involved except shareholders.
So let me get this straight. Your logis is: y’all are idiots -> Disney has a right to do this -> who cares if it’s right -> it’s the law so shut up -> ‘Get over it.’ No thanks.
Here’s a bombshell – this likely would not be legal before Reagan took office, and it would not be legal – let alone attempted – prior to the mid-1970s. And what, it’s inconceivible that something legal can be objectionable? Excuse me, I’m going to go sell some slaves, waterboard some detainees, displace some Native Americans, and sit by the polls to make sure no women vote.
There are more productive things to do than tell people to swallow it as public domain continues to be marched on by Disney legal teams.
An enormous portion of Disney successes have not been original to Disney at all. They’re sanitized-and-sugared animated versions of old folk tales, or modern fairy tales with characters adapted from old folk tales, or mythology, or well, anything that happened to predate the whole concept of copyright. So, sorry, no, a lot of this stuff is not theirs. It was never theirs. Even if they bathed it, dressed it, lightened its skin, and put the most darling little button nose on it, they didn’t invent it and it does not belong to them. IMHO, it’s high time we said “no” to corporations which are trying to control our culture – especially retroactively.
Screw their business plan!
This is kind of easy isn’t it? The Princes Aurora they create in their movies, shows, plays etc. is the one that would be protected — the non-Disney ballet performances cited or the like could continue to be protected with a little bit of language limbo I should think. It’s most likely they are trying to revamp or expand use of the character as portrayed in Sleeping Beauty but who knows – - I’d guess that if it’s interpreted to be as overreaching as this story suggests that proper parameters will be established.
Disney’s image of wholesome, homey honesty and goodwill across much of America – perhaps even the world – just may be one of the greatest and longest-running confidence games in all history, even if it hasn’t cost the lives lost in the infamous challenger: “We invaded Iraq to bring them democracy” scam. It has become a rapacious, greedy, bullying company that puts no living person’s needs, interests or desires above the importance of assuring that the bottom line on a balance sheet is as substantial to the very last dollar and cent as it can possibly be.
How else will Disney pay Iger’s fatass salary????? File more lawsuits. It’s what Disney does best.
What’s next trademarking Gilgamesh? How about cave drawings? I hope God retained his separated rights or else the Mouse is coming for him.
Is Miley Cyrus trademarked yet?
In Lugosi v. Universal Pictures (1979) 25 C3d 813, Universal Studios won claim to Count Dracula as portrayed by Bela Lugosi despite the Lugosi heirs’ plea that their progenitor’s image belonged to them. Nevertheless, the character of Dracula created by Bram Stoker (which was, itself, the source of an earlier copyright battle over “Nosferatu” [1922]) remains in the public domain. Likewise, Universal holds the rights to the distinctive Jack Pierce makeup for the Frankenstein monster (1931), although anybody else (such as Robert DeNiro in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein” [1994], which was arguably closer to the Shelley original) could make a movie with that P.D. creation.
Furious D in these blogs is correct, as are others who posit that Disney’s unique characterization of Princess Aurora may accord them protection, but that her trusseau would constitute new and transformative material but would not reach the threshhold of a basic copyright or trademark on the Grimm original (which was, itself, copied from traditional lore).
Blah blah blah. Legal is one thing, and practical is another. How many kids now think that Disney created Winnie-the-Pooh, Peter Pan, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White, Pinocchio, or other beloved characters that their artists and merchandisers merely adapted? Given that it was The Mouse who changed copyright law solely to protect Mickey before he passed into Public Domain, there’s no telling what their admittedly brilliant attorneys might devise — and then persuade Courts to declare. Protecting one’s intellectual property is one thing, but appropriating someone else’s is quite another. At least now we know where the prick came from on that spinning wheel that sent Princess Aurora into sleeping beautyland.
Wow.
I don’t know who Mike is, but I am in love!
We need more people — and more speakers and writers — like him in this world!
Someday, my legal team will come.
DOTW
I can’t wait for the day Mickey Mouse himself becomes public domain and other companies try to copyright it.
Sorry Disney.
You lose this time.
great response Mike.
In the original Russian score, the name is Avrora, not Aurora. The ballet should be safe
It seems to me that they are trying to secure their rights to the Princess Aurora character that they developed, not take over everything in history that has that name. Maybe I’m missing something, but it would seem well within their rights to do that. Just my 2 cents.
good post Mike. Totally agree.
I welcome Anonymous or anyone else to explain the situation further if they got more facts/legal expertise than the rest of us.
I’d even love to see some healthy debate. I feel like there might be a plausible argument as to why Disney should be able to trademark their specific version of a public domain character.
But don’t patronize everyone with a “get over it. That’s the way things are. Quit complaining.”
Disney is taking characters that belong to all of humanity, making tons of money with them, and then turning around and trying to make it impossible for anyone else to use them ever again, effectively stealing these characters from the public domain (when they just used the for free). It’s such blatant hyprocrisy. Just because “stuff like that happens” doesn’t mean we have to accept it or approve of it.
I don’t see how they can grab something that’s already in the public domain. Could they trademark “Helen of Troy”? Isn’t it really the princess’s *image* that they need to protect? …and isn’t that image already protected under copyright law? I hate this strong-arm bullshit.*
*Bullshit is a registered trademark of Disney Corporation and/or its affiliates in the United States and certain other countries. [One must give credit where credit is due.]
This may explain Disney’s interest:
http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/00022636.html
In Oklahoma it’s a misdemeanor to use alive or dead person’s name in a non news setting.
Florida, well you do remember the Perfect Storm law suit. This corporate bullying is why I took every name and movie title out of my book.
First I didn’t want the injunctions or the law suits taking away any profit. Secondly, while I wanted to use the Matrix, Neo, China Town etc if the studios hadn’t trademarked the name someone else had. It’s all about the money; it’s amazing anything creative gets made without an infringement lawsuit. By the way this is news so I can use those trademarked names. Stick it Disney. Let the little guy have some money
parents, stop encouraging children to take an interest in their sleazy shit, seriously. protest. get one of those channel blockers on the back of your tv. their legal pursuits are insanely invasive into personal freedoms!
As if that’s going to stop the Chinese from using the likeness and name to sell everything from faux M&M’s to faux Big Macs to a thousand landfills of pink plastic princess Aurora purses. I can only think of the hundreds and hundreds of reams of paper necessary to legally stake this claim. What a waste all around, and for what…Princess Aurora?
Another example of this kind of corporate strong-arm behavior in connection with a ridiculous trademark claim: The Gallo wine family thinks they own the Spanish word for ‘rooster’, even when applied to things besides wine. See
http://www.boycottgallo.com
They have sued a tiny Seattle food shop over this.
The legal absurdity is the same as this claim to own “Princess Aurora.”
Reminds me of reading one of Groucho Marx’s books when Warner Brothers tried to sue the Marx Brothers for using the the name of “Brothers” in their films. I hope old man Walt comes back from the dead and kicks you dick heads at Disney in the balls.
Who loves ya baby!!! Not I!!!!!
Given that Walt had his original ideas, at one time, stolen out from under him, I am not sure he would be inclinded to diagree with this strategy no matter how horrible I think it is….
If someone’s name is Michael, can they copyright
the name Mickey? Or, if a child has a mouse as a
pet, and names it Mickey, can the child copyright
the name Mickey Mouse?
Disney is ridiculous. I find it really funny because I just saw a screening on Friday night of a film called RiP: A Remix Manifesto. The film is mostly about copyright law and the music business but it also has a section about Disney. One of the talking heads makes a really interesting point about how Disney is rooted in the scavenging of classical art yet is fiercely protective about it’s own material being reworked. There’s a sequence with a really interesting deconstruction of a classic Mickey Mouse cartoon. It looks like you can download the movie on iTunes now. There also seems to be a streaming source on its homepage but I haven’t tried it out. http://www.ripremix.com/
Where is the contact info for the group fighting Disney? How can we join in? Is there an online petition or something?
You can email the PTO at TrademarkAssistanceCenter@uspto.gov and reference the following information:
SERIAL NUMBER: 77130191
MARK: PRINCESS AURORA
OWNER: Disney Enterprises, Inc.
The general number for the Office of the Commissioner for Trademarks is 571-272-8900 (FAX: 571-273-0029)
Fantastic. If this works out for Disney, I’m going to go out and get Jesus Christ trademarked.
There was a southpark episode not too long ago about Disney getting out of control. It was hilarious. Mickey beat the shit out of one of the joanas(sp?) brothers.
will they trademark the jonahs brothers too?